Trading Places: Giving the body a break (Friday, June 26th, 2009)

Happy Friday everyone!My apologizes for not keeping up with my blog this week, but frankly, there was a whole much to say.I knew on Monday that something wasn’t right with how I was feeling.I was more “achy” than I normally am, and I was sluggish and just not my normal self.I did light cardio as well as a little swimming on Tuesday.I ended up sleeping about 12-15 hours within a 24 hour period.At Wednesday’s session, my weight was up, I was exhausted still, and I had no energy.Pirtle and I decided to change up my diet and give my body a brief break.After my session, I was no to do any type of physical activity for 48 hours.No cardio, nada.Of course there was no arguing from me!I also went to the chiropractor to get “tweaked” so the past 48 hours was more of a “maintenance work” time for my body to rest and repair.Yesterday my energy levels were back up, my joints and muscles felt much better (the chiropractor fixed my pec problem).I still felt as if I had a rock, no, a boulder, in my stomach.I tried about 5 or 6 different pills, powders, teas, etc to fix the problem.

I woke up this morning feeling SO much better.I could tell it in my stomach, my energy levels, and just overall.When I weighed myself, I was three pounds down.Let me mention this though… I knew it had to be something other than body fat, because I could tell myself and Matt that my diet has been perfect and I had been doing cardio on top of being active all day, every day.If I knew my diet had been poorly, I wouldn’t have even mentioned feeling like crap because the second Matt would have asked about my diet I would have had to fess up.So the weight is down, energy level is up and I’m adapting to my new diet.

The new diet isn’t a lot different than my old one, except we replaced my carbs with more fats in the evening.I’m at a 50-30-20 ratio now.Hard to get used to at first, but after perfecting the technique of eating tablespoon full of peanut butter like a Popsicle (that isn’t melting), it wasn’t so bad.You just have to eat it slowly.

My workout today was by far one of the most entertaining ones I’ve had.Me and the rings need to start seeing eye to eye with each other because I’ve noticed that I either look ridiculous attempting an exerciseor I just end up face down on the floor.I have a client that likes to tell me that an exercise is “stupid”, meaning that it’s just hard… I have adapted the same concept, but instead I said “well that sucks!”So, note to Pirtle; the exercises you are making me do may make me look ridiculous and I may struggle with them, but no, they really don’t suck…. It especially doesn’t suck when you make your other clients do them instead of me.It’s my loophole to whining.

Oh wait, it gets better…

I’ve gotten pretty good at kneeling on the ball lately.Today, Pirtle had me try to shoulder press the slosh pipes.We started with the short skinny one; no problem.On to the long skinny one; again, no problem… Then came the short fat one; BIG problem.I was doing well until all of a sudden, I did the one thing I tell my clients: “Don’t dig your kneecaps into the ball.”Well, that’s not really on your mind when you have a slosh pipe in your hands and up in the air I went.To be honest, all I remember is ending up on my stomach on the ball, watching, what seemed to be in slow motion, the slosh pipe crash to the floor.KABOOM… My first worry was that I cracked the slosh pipe (huge “no no”).Pirtle’s first worry was that I somehow hurt myself.I guess through all of my core training, I’ve learned to fall safely without evening knowing it.I still don’t remember falling.

Pull-ups, reverse chest presses, crunches came and gone, and my arms felt as I described to Matt as a “tail” (my arm just hung off my body swinging like a tail… or an elephant’s trunk, WHATEVER).Then lucky me, I got to do the kettlebell.Swinging it with these noodles that were my arms was going to be hard enough at this point, but snatching it above my head was just not looking so good.He made me do it… They weren’t pretty… And I grumbled about it (They can kill the wrists).But they got done, kinda.I think Pirtle let me do fewer reps because it was a loss cause.After attempting to stretch my hamstrings (I have NO flexibility in those suckers) I went and did my 30 minutes of cardio, and to be honest, it wasn’t so hard to do today.

So it’s Friday… Training is done, cardio is done, diet is going great, and I’m staying very hydrated.Measurements are next Wednesday and I’m optimistic for BIG changes this time.I have a busy social weekend but I’m going to do my best at making good eating choices.